June 15
TEXAS:
Senate OKs Life With Parole for 17-Year-Old Murderers
The Senate on Friday approved a measure that would require judges and juries to
sentence 17-year-olds convicted of capital murder to life in prison with the
chance of parole after 40 years.
Gov. Rick Perry expanded the agenda of the special session to include
legislation establishing a mandatory sentence of life with parole for
17-year-olds convicted of capital murder. Prosecutors have said they need
lawmakers to address sentencing options for those criminals after the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled last year that juveniles could not be sentenced to
mandatory life without parole.
The measure that senators passed Friday in a 27-0 vote - Senate Bill 23, by
state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Southside Place - now goes to the House.
In Texas, 17-year-olds have faced the same sentencing options as adults
convicted of capital murder: the death penalty and life without parole. In
2005, the Supreme Court prohibited the death penalty for anyone younger than
18, deciding that the less-developed brains of juveniles render them less
culpable for their behavior. That left only the possibility of life without
parole as punishment for 17-year-olds found guilty of capital crimes.
After last year's Miller v. Alabama ruling, prosecutors said they were left
with no sentencing options for 17-year-old killers. Under SB 23, judges and
juries would be required to hand down a sentence of life with the chance of
parole after 40 years.
Some senators raised concerns that SB 23 doesn't solve the constitutional
problems presented in the Miller case, though. They say the court wanted judges
and juries to have more options when they consider sentences for juveniles.
"If what they were getting at was the 1-size-fits all, do you think this gets
us back in court," state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, asked Huffman during
debate on the Senate floor.
Huffman, a former prosecutor and state criminal judge, said the bill addressed
Texas' historic policy of being tough on "the more heinous offenders" while
still addressing the court's concerns.
"I do not think we're violating Miller by passing this legislation," she said.
Huffman said there are 12 pending cases in Harris County involving 17-year-olds
accused of murder. State Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, said that there
are 27 juveniles currently serving sentences of life without the possibility
parole and that SB 23 would allow Perry to commute those sentences to life with
parole eligibility after 40 years.
(source: Texas Tribune)
FLORIDA:
Gov. Rick Scott signs bill to speed up executions in Florida
Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill into law Friday aimed at accelerating the pace of
the death penalty process in Florida that could make the governor the most
active executioner in modern state history.
The measure, dubbed "the Timely Justice Act" by its proponents, requires
governors to sign death warrants 30 days after the Florida Supreme Court
certifies that an inmate has exhausted his legal appeals and his clemency
review. Once a death warrant is signed, the new law requires the state to
execute the defendant within 6 months.
In a lengthy letter accompanying his signature, Scott aggressively countered
allegations by opponents that the law will "fast track" death penalty cases and
emphasized that it "discourages stalling tactics" of defense attorneys and
ensures that the convicted "do not languish on death row for decades."
The bill, which passed the House 84-34 and was approved by the Senate 28-10,
allows the governor to control the execution schedule slightly because it
requires him to sign a death warrant after the required clemency review is
completed and only the governor may order the clemency investigation. Scott's
office told lawmakers that because at least 13 of the 404 inmates on death row
have exhausted their appeals, his office has already started the clock on the
clemency review.
If Scott were to sign death warrants for the 13 eligible inmates, and their
executions were to continue as planned, he will be on schedule to put to death
21 murderers since he took office in January 2011. The only other recent
governor who executed that many people was former Gov. Jeb Bush, who ordered
the execution of 21 convicted killers but did it over an 8-year period.
The only governor to commute a death sentence since the state passed its
current capital punishment law in 1973 was former Gov. Bob Graham who reduced
the sentences of seven men between 1979 and 1983 for various reasons, according
to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The clemency provision was added at the request of Scott's general counsel,
Pete Antonacci. The clemency investigation allows for the state Parole
Commission to conduct an off-the-record review of the entire case and recommend
whether the death warrant should be signed or the sentence commuted.
Opponents warn that the accelerated clock will diminish the opportunity to
exonerate anyone on death row who has been wrongly convicted, reduce the
opportunity to challenge convictions because of ineffective counsel, and
produce a "bloodbath" of executions in the next month.
"Gov. Scott came to Tallahassee to restructure our economy and drag us out of
the recession, but if this happens history will note him as the governor who
signed more warrants than anyone else," said Howard Simon, executive director
of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. But Antonacci, who has
overseen the governor's death penalty review, disagrees. The clemency provision
was added at his request and that clemency investigations typically take from 4
months to a year, after which the governor and Cabinet serving as the clemency
board must decides whether to commute a sentence or move forward with the death
warrant. But, he acknowledged, the 13 inmates now undergoing the review "will
be done within the next year."
The Timely Justice Act comes at a time when 5 other states are either repealing
or putting a moratorium on executions, and the Florida Supreme Court is
conducting a comprehensive review aimed at making more efficient the state's
post-conviction process.
Florida leads the nation in exonerating death row inmates, having released 24
prisoners from Death Row in the last decade. Death penalty opponents flooded
the governor's office with letters and petitions urging him to veto the bill
and ask the Legislature to reform what they consider a deeply flawed death
penalty process in Florida. Among their complaints: Florida is only 1 of 2
states that do not require a unanimous jury to sentence someone to death.
But the bill's supporters say that the ability to exonerate the innocent will
not be hampered by the faster appeals process and argue that it will restore
the deterrent value of the state's death penalty.
"We're not short on anti-death penalty zealots in Florida, but most people in
Florida think it's unreasonable to put people on death row 20 to 25 years when
their sentence was not in question," said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Shalimar, the
House sponsor of the bill.
Supporters said 154 inmates have been on Florida's death row 20 years and 10
have been there for more than 35 years. The average time for appeals runs 13
years, which is below the national average of 14.8 years.
Death penalty opponents flooded the governor's office with letters and
petitions, urging him to veto the bill and ask the Legislature to instead
change what they consider a deeply flawed death penalty process in Florida.
"If this bill had been law, it would have ended my life - even though I was
innocent," said Sean Penalver of Broward County, who was exonerated after 6
years on death row, as he delivered 6,000 petitions to the governor's office in
May. "But if he signs this bill into law, I fear other innocent people like me
will be unjustly executed by the State of Florida."
The law imposes strict time limits for when records must be submitted from
courts, prosecutors and defense attorneys in an attempt to streamline the
appeals process. It also requires reports to the Legislature on how many cases
have been pending, reestablishes a death row appeals office for North Florida
and bans attorneys from handling capital appeals if they have been twice cited
for constitutionally incompetent handling of cases. After an inmate is
executed, the law also allows the state to destroy all records relating to the
convicted killer's case, unless a lawyer objects - a change in policy that
Simon of the ACLU finds shocking.
"We may execute an innocent person and then destroy the files so the people of
Florida will never know that we committed that travesty," he said. "It's
essentially cover it up."
(source: Miami Herald)
***********************
Death Trap----Florida's horrifying plan to make it quicker and easier to
execute its death row inmates.
On Wednesday night in Florida, a man named William Van Poyck was executed by
lethal injection. Van Poyck was convicted of killing a prison guard, Fred
Griffis, in 1987. He always said that it was his accomplice who pulled the
trigger, and last month, that man's wife came forward for the 1st time to say
that was true. But the Florida courts turned down many appeals from Van Poyck
over the years - twice by a vote of 4 to 3. And this week, the U.S. Supreme
Court denied him a last-minute reprieve.
Van Poyck became a writer in prison. He wrote three books - 2 crime novels and
a memoir - and he also kept a blog, in the form of letters he wrote to his
sister, Lisa. Last month, he wrote about what it's like to anticipate one's own
death:
"When your warrant gets signed so many things suddenly become trivial. I've
already thrown or given away 95% of my personal property, the stuff that for
years seemed so important. All those great books I'll never get to read; reams
and reams of legal work I've been dragging around, and studying, for 2 decades
and which has suddenly lost its relevance. My magazines and newspapers stack up
unread. ... Does it really matter to me now what's happening in the Middle
East, or on Wall Street, or how my Miami Dolphins are looking for the upcoming
new season? What's the point? Ditto the TV; I'm uninterested in wasting time
that means nothing in the grand scheme of things. The other day I caught myself
reaching for my daily vitamin. Really?, I wondered ... Now, every decision
about how to spend the next hour reminds me of Elaine in that Seinfeld episode
where she had to constantly evaluate whether her boyfriends were really 'sponge
worthy.'"
Van Poyck's execution signals that the number of inmates being executed in
Florida is rising. There are 405 people on death row in the state. After a
period of 1 or 2 executions per year, or none at all, Florida Gov. Rick Scott
has signed 11 death warrants since coming into office in January 2011, 6 of
them in the last few months.
That's not enough for the Florida legislature. It recently became the 1st in
the country to pass a bill requiring the pace of executions to speed up. It's
called the Timely Justice Act, and it sets a deadline of 30 days for the
governor to sign a death warrant once an inmate's appeals become final - that
is, after at least 1 round of state and federal appeals, and after a review by
the governor for clemency. And once the governor signs the warrant, the Timely
Justice Act says the execution must occur within 180 days. Scott signed the
bill into law late Friday.
This is a particularly troubling plan given the circumstances in Florida. Since
the mid-1970s, the state has executed 77 people. Florida has also exonerated 24
people who've been sentenced to die - the most of any state. In other words,
for every 3 inmates executed, 1 is set free.
What's the problem in Florida - why do they convict and sentence to die so many
innocent people? It's the only state in the country in which a simple majority
of the jury - a vote of 7 to 5???can send a man or woman to the electric chair
or lethal injection. Every other state but one requires a unanimous vote. (The
other exception to that rule, Alabama, requires 10 votes).
Another huge problem in Florida: the low quality of defense lawyers, especially
at trial. Florida Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero has said that "some of
the worst lawyering" he has ever seen has been in death penalty cases, where
some counsel "have little or no experience." In 2006, the American Bar
Association reviewed Florida's death penalty system, questioned its fairness
and accuracy, and made 11 recommendations for reform. The Florida Supreme Court
and the Florida bar have also urged a comprehensive review. None of this has
happened, as Andrew Cohen points out in the Atlantic.
The Timely Justice Act also puts Florida out of step with the rest of the
country. Nationally, the number of executions has been falling. California and
North Carolina haven't executed anyone since 2006. Illinois, Connecticut, and
Maryland recently repealed their death penalties. Even Texas, the nation's
leader in executions, will have to slow down to fix problems with its law,
according to a recent Supreme Court ruling.
Why does Florida want to go in the opposite direction? "Only God can judge,"
Matt Gaetz, a Republican who sponsored the Timely Justice Act in the Florida
House, has said. "But we sure can set up the meeting." When I called Gaetz to
discuss his bill further, he didn't call me back. Neither did the bill's
sponsor in the state senate, Joe Negron. Another state senator who backed the
bill, Rob Bradley, agreed to talk. He is a lawyer who says that people are
sitting on death row too long. "Everybody realizes right now, that when a
person is sentenced to death, it's going to be 10, 20, 30, 40 years before they
are executed," Bradley says. "And so that erodes the public's confidence, and
it leaves the impression, rightly or wrongly, that the system is broken."
I'd argue that having the highest rate of exonerations in the country might
also erode the public's confidence in the state's system. And in fact, it's not
true that Florida is particularly slow to execute - the state's average waiting
time of 13.2 years is less than the national average of 14.8 years.
Bradley insists that the Timely Justice Act won't make it quicker and easier to
execute someone who is innocent. "What it does is it puts the condemned and his
or her lawyers on notice that they need to, if they have claims of innocence,
they need to gather them and present them to a competent court of law, and do
so in a timely manner," he said.
But there are a couple of problems with that argument. One is that evidence of
innocence can surface years after a conviction. Courts move slowly on these
cases for a reason: death is different, as the U.S. Supreme Court has said many
times.
Take the case of Juan Melendez. He was on Florida's death row for 16 years
before a diligent defense investigator discovered a tape in the case files - a
tape of another man confessing to the murder that no one had presented to the
jury. Before the tape came out, the Florida Supreme Court rejected his appeals
3 times. If the Timely Justice Act had been in effect at the time, Melendez
might easily have been executed. I found four more people like that when I
looked up the records of Florida's 24 exonerees. These men spent between 13 and
21 years on death row. It took time and a lot of work to undo the mistakes that
initially doomed them.
And those mistakes were often made by their own lawyers. William Van Poyck's
trial lawyer did no investigation before the trial, digging up nothing that
would give the jury a reason to spare his client's life. And the lawyer on his
1st appeal reportedly admitted to being a cocaine addict, had previously been
disbarred, and never spoke to Van Poyck or answered any of his letters.
Then there's the case of Clemente Aguirre. He's the man who may well become
Florida???s 25th exoneree - and his case shows how prone to error Florida's
death penalty system still is.
In 2006, Aguirre was accused of murdering two of his neighbors, 47-year-old
Cheryl Williams and her mother. The women lived next door to him in a trailer
park. The crime was bloody and brutal: Williams was stabbed 129 times. Aguirre
was a prep cook from Honduras who was in the United States illegally. At first,
when police questioned him about the murders, Aguirre said he knew nothing.
Then he went back to the police, on his own, and told them he'd discovered the
bodies late on the night of the killings, when he went to Williams' trailer to
ask if she had any beer. (Williams had been dating one of Aguirre's roommates.)
Aguirre led the police to clothing and shoes he'd been wearing that night,
which had the victims' blood on it. He explained that when he opened the door
of the trailer, he found Williams' body and turned it over to see if she had a
pulse. He hadn't reported the killings, Aguirre said, because he was afraid
he'd be deported.
Aguirre's trial lawyer did little investigation and he never asked for DNA
testing. The jury voted 7 to 5 to sentence him to death. Interviewed by a state
psychiatrist in 2011, Aguirre said, through a translator, "They had the wrong
man then, and they have the wrong guy now." He continued: "DNA. DNA. DNA. Si."
Aguirre was right. When his lawyers on appeal finally had DNA testing done, it
showed no matches for Aguirre's blood at the crime scene - and 8 fresh
bloodstains that matched the DNA profile of Cheryl Williams' daughter. At a
hearing last month, Aguirre's lawyers presented this new evidence, along with
the testimony of a friend of the daughter, who says the daughter told her that
"demons are in her head and caused her to kill her family." A police video also
shows the daughter saying, "My family died from me." Aguirre is now waiting for
a ruling from the judge who heard the new evidence.
In theory, the Timely Justice Act tries to improve the quality of
representation for death penalty defendants by providing more funding for it.
But if you read the bill, you find that only about $400,000 has been allocated
to reopen one office for defense lawyers in the northern part of the state. And
this office won't handle trials or even the 1st appeal. They come in only at
the last stage.
If you really wanted to fix Florida's death penalty system, you wouldn't speed
it up in a fit of frustration. You'd do the opposite. "Really what we need to
do is pause," says Stephen K. Harper, a longtime death penalty defense lawyer
and the supervising attorney in the death penalty clinic at Florida
International University's law school. "Let's step back, let's consider the
death penalty, from beginning through the end, and only then would we be able
to come up with decent recommendations as to how to change it."
That's just not what's happening. Now that Scott has signed the Timely Justice
Act, the governor's own legal advisor says, there are 13 inmates on death row
whose final state of review "will be done within the next year."
(source: Slate.com)
********************
"Shame on the Governor" for signing Rush-to-Execute Bill; So-called "Timely
Justice Act" signed by Gov. Scott exacerbates tragedy of Florida's broken death
row
The following statement on Governor Rick Scott's approval of HB 7083, "The
Timely Justice Act," may be attributed to Howard Simon, Executive Director,
ACLU of Florida:
Shame on the Governor for putting the cynical calculation of his chances for
re-election over ensuring that Florida will never execute an innocent person.
Signing the "Rush to Execute" bill (the grotesquely-named "Timely Justice Act")
will make this next year the deadliest and ugliest in the history of Florida's
death row.
Whatever else the Governor's goals and ambitions were - lowering taxes,
creating jobs, restructuring our economy - history will remember Scott for
executing more people than any other Florida Governor. That will be his legacy.
When sometime in the future Florida faces the horror that the state has
executed an innocent person, as the bill the Governor signed today makes
terrifyingly likely, Floridians need only look back to this day to answer the
question of 'how could this happen.'
The law signed by Governor Scott means that people will have less time to
challenge a wrongful conviction than some of those who were able to prove their
innocence spent on death row. That's less time for the kind of evidence that
exonerated some of Florida's 24 death row exonerees to come to light.
Florida's experience has been nearly one exoneree for every three people
executed. Had this law been in effect in the past, innocent people very likely
would have been killed. Why would Governor Scott think that the future will be
any different?
The death penalty in Florida is already a tragedy, with more exonerations than
any other state and a federal judge declaring our method of handing down death
sentences unconstitutional. In this climate of increasing doubt about the
accuracy, legality, and morality of our death penalty, Governor Scott has
required himself to order the executions of 13 people by signing this
rush-to-execute bill. His signature will make the next year the most deadly
ever on Florida's death row.
Worse still, the bill allows for the destruction of documents pertaining to a
case after a person has been executed. This means that even after a rushed
execution, people won't be able to have a full record of what happened, casting
further doubt on the process. If the state executed an innocent person, the
destruction of the records will ensure that the people will never know about
it. How are Floridians supposed to trust our justice system when records about
what it does in our name are destroyed forever?
Given our state's shameful track record, you'd think our leaders would at the
very least make an effort to make sure our death penalty system is getting it
right. Instead, the governor and legislature floored the gas pedal on an
already out-of-control machine, hurtling the people of Florida into a dangerous
and violent future of their government killing people with more frequency and
less certainty.
(source: ACLUFL.org)
**********************
Florida Panhandle man guilty of killing Georgia teen, face possible death
sentence
A Florida Panhandle man faces a possible death sentence for killing a teenage
Georgia girl on vacation with her family.
A Walton County jury found 23-year-old Steven Cozzie guilty of 1st-degree
murder, sexual battery, aggravated child abuse and kidnapping on Friday. The
Northwest Florida Daily News (http://goo.gl/cMcZV ) reports that the penalty
phase, where jurors recommend the death penalty or life in prison, begins next
week.
Authorities say 15-year-old Courtney Wilkes was found dead in Seagrove Beach a
day after she went missing in June 2011. She and her family had been visiting
from Lyons, Georgia.
Witnesses connected Cozzie to Wilkes, and he was arrested shortly after her
body was found.
(source: Associated Press)
*******************
Supreme Court upholds death sentence for Jacksonville man convicted of killing
wife
The Florida Supreme Court has unanimously upheld the murder conviction and
death sentence of a Jacksonville resident who posed as a pizza delivery man to
get into his estranged wife's apartment and stabbed her repeatedly in front of
her 5-year-old son.
Lesly Jean-Philippe, 27, was convicted of killing 24-year-old Elkie
Jean-Philippe in March 2011. He was sentenced to die by Circuit Judge Adrian G.
Soud after the jury that convicted him unanimously recommended death row.
The killing occurred in August 2009 after Elkie Jean-Philippe sought a divorce
from what prosecutors called an abusive marriage. During the penalty phase
witnesses testified that her husband repeatedly beat her and cut her hair off
with a knife before she sought a divorce.
Attorneys for Jean-Philippe argued that Soud made a mistake by allowing text
messages sent from him to his wife and sister-in-law to be used by prosecutors
during trial. Tallahassee Public Defender David A. Davis argued the texts were
hearsay evidence that should have been declared inadmissable.
But the Supreme Court, in a ruling written by Chief Justice Ricky Polston,
rejected that argument and said the texts were allowable because they backed up
information that had already been corroborated by witnesses.
The taxi driver who drove Jean-Philippe to the apartment testified that he
heard him talking on his cell phone saying "wait a minute, we can work it out"
and Roya Gordon, Elkie Jean-Philippe???s sister, also testified that
Jean-Philippe called and texted them repeatedly.
Jean-Philippe's attorneys also argued that the murder was committed in a fit of
rage and was not planned beforehand. Under Florida law, the death penalty
cannot be imposed unless a defendant plans the murder beforehand.
But Polston rejected that argument by pointing out that Jean-Philippe flew from
Rhode Island to Jacksonville on the day of the murder and didn't tell his wife
or sister-in-law that he was coming. He then used deception to get into the
apartment, suggesting he had planned out what to do beforehand.
On the night of the murder, Jean-Philippe stole a tire jack out of his wife's
car and knocked on her door while identifying himself as a pizza delivery man.
Gordon testified she cracked open the door to say they didn't order a pizza.
Jean-Philippe then pushed through the door, hit Gordon over the head with a
tire jack and stabbed his wife repeatedly with a knife.
A neighbor testified that Elkie Jean-Philippe and her son from a previous
relationship continued screaming for 15 minutes while Gordon and other
neighbors called 911. She was still alive when police arrived, but died soon
after arriving at the hospital.
Medical examiners found over 50 stab wounds on Elkie Jean-Philippe's body and
her lungs, liver and stomach were punctured. Pathologist Jesse Giles said there
were 7 or 8 individual wounds that could have been fatal on their own.
Davis said he had not spoken to Jean-Philippe since the decision came out, and
couldn't comment on it.
An execution date has not been set.
(source: Florida Times-Union)
ALABAMA:
Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals again rules no discrimination in Jason Sharp
capital murder case
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals today sided with a Madison County judge
who found no discrimination during jury selection in the capital murder case of
Jason Sharp.
Sharp was convicted in 2006 of capital murder and given a death sentence for
the 1999 stabbing death of Tracy Morris.
The case took years to go to trial, but it has also taken a twisting road in
the appeals courts.
The court of criminal appeals in 2011 granted Sharp a new trial based on
allegations that prosecutors violated the law by striking African Americans
from the jury pool for reasons that were not race-neutral.
But the appeals court reversed itself last year, finding that Sharp was not
discriminated against.
Sharp is white and Tracy Morris was also white.
The dispute came during the appeals process when Sharp's attorneys filed a
"Batson" challenge in the case. A Batson challenge is named after a 1986 U.S.
Supreme Court decision in a Kentucky case. The court set standards to ensure
jurors are not barred for jury service for race-based reasons. The standard
requires attorneys to have "race-neutral" reasons for striking people from the
jury pool and to be able to prove it, if challenged.
The Alabama Supreme Court issued an order last October directing the court of
criminal appeals to receive briefs from the State of Alabama and Sharp's
attorneys on the issue of whether he was not given a fair trial given the
alleged jury discrimination.
The court ruled today that there was no plain error by the trial court in
ruling that Sharp was not discriminated against.
The decision affirms the ruling by Madison County Circuit Judge Laura Hamilton
from July 2010 that prosecutors did not act improperly.
Hamilton's ruling followed an order by the Alabama Supreme Court. The court
required Madison County District Attorney Rob Broussard, who prosecuted Sharp,
to explain the reasons why African Americans in the jury pool were struck in a
hearing, or Sharp would receive a new trial.
In the jury selection for Sharp's trial, 11 of 13 black jurors were struck from
the jury pool and Sharp's attorneys were critical of the reasons given, calling
them a "sham."
Broussard argued in that April hearing that prosecutors primarily struck jurors
who expressed opposition to the death penalty. Others were struck, he said,
because prosecutors questioned their ability to process technical testimony
about DNA evidence.
Other reasons given by Broussard included a failure to fill out some answers on
a juror questionnaire, prior jury service, schedule conflicts, criminal history
and family members who were crime victims.
The defense questioned each choice, including why a minister was on the panel,
while a minister in training was not.
It also questioned the validity of the prosecution's concerns about the
"sophistication" of jurors related to scientific evidence.
In her decision Hamilton found the state had race-neutral reasons for each
juror struck. She found the death penalty opposition, failure to answer
questions, jury service, criminal history and family exposure to crime, all met
the requirements.
Hamilton generally did not find the sophistication argument a sufficient basis
for disqualification, but agreed each juror was properly struck for other
reasons.
"Those reasons which the court found to be valid were not a function of pretext
or sham, and this court finds that no further relief is due to be afforded to
the defendant in this case," Hamilton's order concludes.
Huntsville attorney Brian Clark, who represents Sharp along with attorney
Cecilia Pope, said the dissent in the court of criminal appeals opinion is
correct and the case will now go back to the Alabama Supreme Court.
"The original Supreme Court finding of a potential (Batson violation) will now
go back up to them within 14 days and they can review the record and say 'new
trial' or 'no error,'" Clark said. "I believe the dissent to be the proper
ruling and it is particularly straightforward in its reasoning."
The court of criminal appeals said today that it reviewed the full record of
the case and the briefs filed before concluding "that the trial court did not
clearly err in holding that Sharp failed to demonstrate that the State engaged
in purposeful discrimination.
"Indeed, the totality of the relevant facts supports the trial court's
determination that the prosecutor's challenges were not based on race or
ethnicity," the court wrote in a 3-2 opinion.
In her dissent, Judge Elizabeth Kellum said strikes of 2 jurors were improper.
"I must dissent from the majority's holding that the trial court did not err in
denying Sharp's motion made pursuant to Batson v. Kentucky," she wrote. "After
thoroughly reviewing the record, I have no choice but to conclude that all the
reasons given by the State for striking Jurors no. 27 and 11 were pretextual
and thus improper under Batson."
(source: al.com)
*******************
Alleged Hit Man Confesses to 30 Murders
A man arrested for a single murder in rural Alabama has confessed to at least
30 murders throughout the United States, revealing a vast network of illegal
drug deals and murders for hire, police said.
Already, police in Florida and California say they have confirmed Jose
Martinez's alleged involvement in 13 killings after he confessed details only
someone at the scene of the murders would know, Lawrence County Alabama Sheriff
Gene Mitchell told ABC News.com.
Taken into custody two weeks ago, Martinez, an alleged hit man for a Mexican
drug cartel whom police describe as "an enforcer whose job it was to collect
money or kill those who didn't pay," has been cooperating with police,
confessing to a string of crimes that spanned decades.
It wasn't a drug deal but what police say was a personal vendetta that landed
Martinez, 52, in a rural Alabama jail.
He is accused of shooting Jose Ruiz in the head for insulting his daughter and
then dumping Ruiz's body on the edge of the woods in Lawrence County, Ala., in
March.
Cops had suspected Martinez at the time of the crime, but did not have evidence
to charge him and he fled to Mexico. 2 weeks ago, Martinez, a U.S. citizen and
California resident, was caught sneaking across the border from Mexico near
Yuma, Ariz.
Authorities there extradited him to Alabama, where he confessed first to
killing Ruiz, then to two more murders in Florida, and eventually to 30,
including 11 in California alone.
"In the course of interviewing him on [the Ruiz] murder, we developed a good
rapport," Mitchell said. "He felt comfortable talking to our investigator and
in the course of those conversations, he mentioned he had done some other
things."
Among those other things was a 2006 murder in Ocala, Fla., in which a cigarette
was found at the scene with DNA that matched Martinez.
Though charged with murder, Martinez does not have an attorney and has not
asked for one during a series of interviews, Mitchell said. He has not yet
entered a plea.
Instead the accused murderer seems to want to unburden himself, police said,
even though he will likely face the death penalty.
"I would suppose he doesn't have a lot of folks he can talk to," Mitchell said.
"Everyone needs someone to vent to and he hit it off with our investigator."
Mitchell said Martinez was "likable, but that doesn't excuse his lifestyle."
(source: Yahoo News)
OHIO:
Task force urges state panel be created to evaluate death penalty prosecutions
A state task force is recommending that Ohio create a panel under the state
attorney general that would review potential death penalty cases before
prosecutors could take them to trial.
Under current Ohio law, the power to decide when to pursue the death penalty
rests in the hands of individual county prosecutors.
But the recommendation by the Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of
Ohio's Death Penalty would give the new panel authority to disapprove death
penalty charges.
The recommendation is an attempt to address disparities in death penalty
prosecutions in Ohio, said Ohio Public Defender Timothy Young, who chaired a
subcommittee that drafted the recommendation.
"The 2 biggest disparities my group has dealt with are race issues and
geographic issues," Young said. In the case of race issues, they revolve around
the race of the victim.
"I think it's vitally important that we do something about disparity and the
death penalty," Young said. "The numbers are overwhelming."
Once a prosecutor made a decision, the panel -- made up of staff from the
attorney general's office and former county prosecutors appointed by the
governor -- would review that decision.
It would look at the circumstances of the case, giving particular consideration
to the races of those charged and the victims, said Jo Ellen Cline, government
relations counsel to the Ohio Supreme Court and the court's liaison to the
joint task force.
"It would be a significant change in how things operate now," Cline said.
The task force's recommendation has a long way to go before it could become
reality. It likely will be late in the year before the task force finishes its
work, and some recommendations, including this one, would require legislative
action to change state law.
Given that, not all of the details on how the panel would work, or if a
prosecutor would have some recourse if opposed to the panel's decision, are not
nailed down. That specificity would likely come from the General Assembly,
Cline said.
Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, with the Ohio State Bar Association,
established the joint task force in 2011. It is charged with determining if
capital punishment in Ohio is administered fairly and judiciously and to
examine if adjustments are needed.
The task force was established in light of a 2007 American Bar Association
assessment of Ohio's death penalty system that found the existence of racial
bias and geographic disparities in the state's death penalty sentencing.
Among its findings:
-Those whose victims were white were nearly four times more likely to receive a
death sentence than those whose victims were black.
-The chances of a death sentence varied greatly by location. Forty-three
percent of those charged in Hamilton County received death sentences, compared
to just 8 % in Cuyahoga. Hamilton County's death-sentence convictions were
nearly 3 times the state average, nearly 4 times Cuyahoga County's rate and
more than 6 times Franklin County's rate.
Far and away the majority of Ohio's capital cases come from urban areas, Young
said. And while they should naturally see more, simply because of population,
their numbers are also greater per capita.
"We have more than 40 counties that have never brought a death penalty case,"
Young said.
There are a myriad of possibilities for why that is the case. The goal of the
recommendation is to find more of a common standard, Young said.
"Right now you have 88 prosecutors, all well intentioned," Young said. "Our
thought process was that if it went through a central committee that would even
out those 88 applications."
Young said there was was significant debate on the recommendation, which was
approved by a vote of 8 to 6.
Much of the debate dealt with the impact it would have on what now is a matter
of prosecutorial discretion. And Young said he would not be surprised if those
opposed to the recommendation write a dissenting opinion for the final report.
Cline agreed. "They're concerned that the prosecutors were elected by the folks
in their jurisdictions to make these decisions," she said.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty, through his staff, said he was
not yet familiar with the recommendation and declined to comment on it. McGinty
also is a member-at-large for 2013 of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys
Association.
Neither John Murphy, the OPAA's executive director, nor Franklin County
Prosecutor Ron O???Brien, the OPAA's president, could be reached for comment
Friday.
The task force hopes to conclude its work this year, Cline said. It will
prepare a report on its recommendations for the Ohio Supreme Court, including
any dissenting opinions.
Task force members may make presentations to legislators on recommendations
that will require changes in state law. Other recommendations, though, could
fall under the Supreme Court's jurisdiction already.
"If it's a recommendation that the court can implement," Cline said, "then I
think that they would take a look at that and decide if they want to move
forward."
(source: Plain Dealer)
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